For the next week alex spent most of his time actually out in the highlands hunting the local wildlife. The tizi yaku which was a dark blue-purple raptor monster with the ability to create massive bright flashes of light , gave Alex the most problems in this time. Not because it was powerful , since it was actually very weak , but rather because the damn things always seemed to make their way into the middle of Alex's hunts blinding him and his prey temporarily before fleeing. He had tried hunting the damn things down before his actually hunt but another always replaced the last in the area immediately.
Even the one trait that the irritating monsters had that Alex wanted apparently wasn't something he could force the system to give him since he had tried. [Light resistance] was the trait he got instead that's only purpose was to make him not need to worry about being blinded as much. During his hunts this directly translated to him only being blinded for half the amount of time compared to normal , still not a pleasant thing the experience. Still despite this irritating and reoccurring problem he had hunted every one of the low rank monsters that showed up in this area.
Odogaron , poalumu , tizi , and legiana had all been hunted and devoured by Alex during this time while the third fleet put Zain and the handler to work. Odogaron was very rare to encounter in the highlands but did sometimes come up from the vale for some reason or another. Alex wasn't sure why this was since he knew for a fact that the vale was filled with food for the monster. In the end he just decided it wasn't important and focused his attention to the traits he had generated from the monster.
[Bloodletting claws] and [berserk] were the traits generated from him eating an odogaron both of which were rare ranked. This left Alex rather unhappy because the second of these traits he was very much against unlocking. Anyone who had truly fought the red muscle dog monster would be aware of what this trait does. For those who don't know however [berserk] is a passive trait that only shows it's effect when the monster enters an enraged state. Unlike when most monsters enter and enraged state the odogaron ACTUALLY becomes more dangerous not only because it's attacks become more reckless but also because it's power grew.
In exchange for this burst of power the trait causes the muscles in the body to grow exhausted while also spiking the temperature of the odogarons insides. Once this rage state ends and the trait stops boosting the odogaron it enters a state of extreme exhaustion until it can cool down and recover. Alex's entire style of hunting meant that this trait would never be used since he would never actually enter a rage state. To put it bluntly this trait was functionally useless for Alex and as a result was to be discarded without hesitation.
From the poalumu Alex got the [enhanced lung capacity] trait which made sense considering the monster he got it from was famous for inhaling huge amounts of air to float in the air , like a balloon. This trait was merely uncommon however so he had no problem unlocking it in this week unlike the [bloodletting claws]. The third fleet had Zain making preparations to descend into the rotten vale this whole time and thanks to his help had fixed the bases ability to fly. Alex of course decided to not wait on them to finish before heading down into the vale on his own.
If you have ever inhaled something you shouldn't have then you would understand what it felt like to breath in the effluvia rich air of the vale. Alex really regretted coming down here for the first few hours because of this constant feeling of breathing in whatever constituted effluvia. The local monsters weren't very understanding either as more than once he was attacked by giros or even hornetaurs. Thankfully the giros tended to have a pack mentality and as a result fled after he started killing off members of their pack.
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